New licences for the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool
Authors: Priya Venkatesan
Journal: The Lancet Microbe (2023)

In recognition of the need to pool global resources to fight the pandemic, in March 2020, the government of Costa Rica reached out to WHO requesting the formation of a global repository of intellectual property for technologies to detect, prevent, control, and treat COVID-19. Thus, the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) was launched in May 2020 by WHO and the government of Costa Rica, with the support of 44 WHO Member States, the UN, UNAIDS, the Medicines Patent Pool, and other partners, in response to a worldwide solidarity call to action. C-TAP was proposed and designed as a global platform to enable the voluntary sharing of patents, data, and knowledge by developers of COVID-19 therapeutics, diagnostics, vaccines, and other health products to facilitate their equitable and affordable access for all countries. Despite the launch of this initiative, disparities in equitable access to health technologies between high-income countries and low-to-middle income countries (LMICs) remained all too evident during the pandemic. And following WHO's worldwide call to action, only two public health institutes—the Spanish National Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health—shared their key data and knowledge with C-TAP at the height of the pandemic. However, in a positive move in August 2023, three new licenses were acquired by C-TAP to transfer knowledge, clinical data, and materials needed in different countries. The three licenses were for a COVID-19 vaccine by the private manufacturer Medigen Vaccine Biologics (which has already been administered in seven countries), a COVID-19 vaccine prototype by the Spanish National Research Council, and a COVID-19 assay for quantification of neutralising antibodies by the University of Chile. The acquisition of the three new licensing agreements is good news, as continued sustainable access to effective COVID-19 therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines is important even now that COVID-19 is no longer considered a public health emergency of international concern. However, it is clear that the voluntary sharing of health technology data and knowledge is unreliable, with very few institutions and private companies contributing. Luiza Pinheiro Alves da Silva (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) commented “The new agreements are important as they strengthen C-TAP and contribute to validating its model. The first agreement with Medigen is a landmark and hopefully will encourage other manufacturers to also share their intellectual property and know-how. The joining of a university like the University of Chile is also very significant, as the partnership can accelerate the time required for a technology to go from the lab to real world use.” Deborah Gleeson (School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, VIC, Australia) added “It's good news that finally, a private vaccine manufacturer [Medigen] has offered to share its patents, know-how and technology through C-TAP. But it's well over 3 years since C-TAP was established. Since then, close to 7 million people have died as a direct result of COVID-19. Equitably distributing vaccines would have saved hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of lives.” Gleeson highlighted that although voluntary initiatives have a role to play, governments need to step up and start requiring the pharmaceutical industry to provide equitable access to vaccines and other medical products needed for pandemics. She said “During the COVID-19 pandemic, many billions of dollars in public funding were poured into developing these products, and yet private companies have been able to maintain monopolies on the information and technology needed to produce them, and control over who receives them. This situation doesn't need to continue, but it takes political will to change.” da Silva commented “None of the largest manufacturers have joined C-TAP. If they had, early in the pandemic, maybe vaccination in low-and middle-income countries could have moved quicker, and overlapping efforts to develop new vaccines could be directed to other health demands.” She continued “The global pharmaceutical innovation system needs structural changes in order to provide equal access to the worldwide population, regardless of their income. Unless innovation in health systems is governed for the common good, too many people remain excluded from its benefits.”